The purpose of this research is to examine the diversity and representation of models of color in ELLE US’ 2017 fashion editorials. As the purpose is twofold, so is the methodological approach, which looks at the material through both a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative visual analysis. Theoretically, the analyses are grounded in postcolonialism, representation and the concept of new racism. To discuss medias’ influence on audiences, the theory also presents related research on this subject. Illustrating a statistical lack of diversity, as well as tendencies of stereotypical representations, the research indicates a postcolonial discourse in ELLE’s content – results that are problematic both in relation to racial equality and to the socially constructed beauty-ideals that ELLE takes part in creating.

The topic of the diploma thesis is „Business plan“. Thesis is divided into three main chapters. First chapter includes theory. In the second chapter a full analysis is processed. Third and the last chapter is focused on suggestions for improvement, which are based on outputs from the previous two chapters. In case of this thesis, the suggestion is business plan for starting beauty salon.

Please note: creative writing theses are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and filled out the appropriate web form. / BEASTS is a character driven play that explores the chaos of American womanhood through the dark underbelly of a relationship between Fran, a pregnant suburbanite and her older sister Judy, an irreverent artist with a propensity for disruption. When Judy hears that Fran’s husband, Jim is on a business trip she decides to pay Fran a visit. The friction between these siblings is palpable and continues to intensify as Judy unearths confounding secrets and infringes upon the relationship that Fran has with her Doula, Amelia, an elitist earth mama who’s been Fran’s only female friend since relocating back East. The world of the play begins in realism and ends in magical realism; as their environment starts to mirror the anarchy of their psychological labyrinthine world: a giant tree falls in the middle of the living room, the walls of the house cave in, raging wolves howl in the distance. Form and logic disintegrate into another realm as Fran and Judy unwittingly fight through pain to arrive at a moment of love which is devitalized when Jim returns home. / 2999-01-01T00:00:00Z

The project New Faces is a series of portraits dealing with the theme of identity and its loss, human individuality and the phenomenon of ideal of beauty. Each of paintings depict different views on the same face, base on personal confessions of portrayed and his friends. Thus we can observe confrontation of the "subjective" and the "objective", where this supposed "objectivity" acquire the relative value in the context of other pictures. The project points to the problem of self-perception and it explores how human perception distorts the reality, especially if more factors (than just a visual image of reality) affects the person.

As sensory marketing is becoming a more widely used strategy in the world, the need to distinguish oneself is more important than ever. The general knowledge of sensory cues, their interplay and sensory overload among Swedish retail beauty companies is researched in this thesis. We set out to identify the baseline knowledge of the store personnel and the implications thereof in Sweden on the subjects formerly mentioned.       This investigative study aims to provide an insight into the workings and knowledge gap of retail store design from the perspective of store personnel with sensory- marketing, interplay and congruency in mind with focus on the senses vision, audio and scent. The knowledge of these are assumed to influence a stores’ ability to cater to and adapt to everyday and sensory-sensitive consumers. The study also aims to provide an insight into the subject of sensory overload, what causes it and the effects that might be had from the experience.    To achieve this, we formed the research questions: “How do beauty retail stores in Sweden keep sensorial interplay in mind when designing their retail setting?” and “How do beauty retail stores in Sweden take sensory overload into consideration?”. We performed qualitative interviews with Swedish retail beauty stores’ employees. A foundational knowledge was established in the form of a literature review followed by empirical findings, to be discussed in the analysis.   The conclusions drawn from our research, were that there is awareness among managers on sensory marketing. However, sensory cues are commonly broken down and compartmentalized into singular events. While we found that there are congruence considerations taken as to how the cues relate to the stores’ brand, there seemed to be little to none taken to how the cues interplay with each other. We could also conclude that sensory overload is not a consideration. However, that there are various reasons to this, one major being that Swedish retailers are careful about the implementation of sensory experiences and therefore consider themselves safe from the possibility.

The aim of this essay is to examine the censorship that the social media platform Instagram exerts over pictures of female nudes, and whether the body type of the women depicted is a factor in how the censorship is carried through. This is executed by making a comparative picture analysis of eight nude photos published on Instagram, four of which are allowed on the platform and four which are not, and have therefore been deleted. The bodies are analysed, and aspects of how they are depicted which are related to the Instagram Community Guidelines, and furthermore if the body depicted conforms to the norms of our contemporary beauty standards and “the Male Gaze”, are reviewed. This fundamental part of the study isbased on the formal analysis and the methods of semiotics. Furthermore, the history of the nude in art, the body norms and ideals of our contemporary society, the Instagram Community rules and Guidelines and the artists are presented briefly. The discussion which has been carried through is based on the analysis and thesis of how female nudes of the Western art cannon have been received, judged, divided into categories and censored to answer the central inquires of the essay. In conclusion, this essay finds how pictures of nude women on Instagram are received, judged, and censored differently depending on whether they fit into the norms of beauty and conform to the male gaze. Hence, the rules of Instagram are found to have been followed through with double standard and bias.

The thesis attempts to discuss the character of late Romantic literature and art as it developed in England throughout the Victorian period. It follows the assertion made by G. Hough that it is possible to identify a continuous presence of Romantic ideas and methods in the writings of some major Victorian authors, and reflects the fact that there was actually no consensus or prevailing unequivocal view of Romanticism at that time, as is evidenced in the contradicting statements of such writers as John Ruskin and Walter Pater. The first objective of the thesis is thus to define the characteristic features of English Romanticism as they can be tracked down in the formative period of the 18th century and the time of High Romanticism of the first decades of the following century, and to see what transforming changes these characteristics underwent during the Victorian era. The sources of Romantic sensibility are located in the revolutionary role of the scientific discoveries of the 17th century and a new focus of the philosophical writings of that period, concerning mainly operations of the human mind. This development resulted in new aesthetic conceptions based on the two prevailing approaches, empiricism and Neo-Platonism. These theories conditioned the main concern of Romantic thought, i.e. an...

The thesis investigates Plotinus' concept of beauty. Chapter 1 focuses on two methodological issues: development in Plotinus' thought and topics of the concerned Enneads. Since Plotinus wrote two Enneads directly devoted to this topic which were numbered and named by Porphyry I.6 On beauty and V.8 On intellectual beauty, these two treatises are addressed first in the context of other relevant Enneads (chapters 2 and 3). The outcome of these chapters is that beauty is primarily to be found in Intellect and that it is closely linked with unity in multiplicity, so this topic is further investigated in more detail. Five mutually interconnected perspectives Plotinus assumes to describe the unity in multiplicity specific to the Intellect, are outlined. Two of them that are related to the nature of intellection and intelligible objects are discussed in chapters 2 and 3. The one related to Intellect's genesis is analysed throughout the thesis. Therefore, most of chapter 4 focuses on the remaining two perspectives which are connected with Intellect's hierarchical (Ennead VI.2) and structural (Ennead VI.6) unity in multiplicity. In chapter 5, Ennead VI.7 is analysed in order to deepen the concept of beauty and refine its relation to the Good, life and other predicates. The last chapter presents a systematic...

Schelling and Adorno are two thinkers from different periods who are critical of the modern scientific approach towards nature, which they deem disruptive. Schelling’s orientation is mainly towards the epistemological, while Adorno’s is also political. Both seek to find a path of the subject’s reconciliation with nature through aesthetics. Via Schelling’s works First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature and System of Transcendental Idealism as well as Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment and Aesthetic theory, this paper emphasizes similarities and differences in their respective ideas on the art-nature relationship. Schelling’s idealistic-practical philosophy centers around the synthetization of nature and freedom, which culminates in the artwork while Adorno rather focuses on subjectivity’s dominance of nature and self and how aesthetics could reform subjectivity into something less harmful, which too would be a step towards freedom. The essay argues that the two thinkers complement each other in certain aspects and that their affinities are more than what appears at a first glance.

Background: China's rapidly growing beauty consumer market has led to environmental deterioration and Chinese citizens are aware of this important issue, however, despite positive pro-environmental attitudes, consumers are reluctant to buy green products. This issue is known as the attitude-behavior gap, and existing research lacks information on how this gap operates in the Chinese beauty market. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to use the ACB (Affective, Cognitive, Behavioral) Attitude Model to explore how the attitude-behavior gap works in the Chinese beauty market, specifically, the attitudes of Chinese consumers and how they influence behavior. Method: This study was an exploratory qualitative study in which 30 Chinese participants were interviewed in 3 focus groups consisting of 10 participants each. For the purpose of this study, participants' attitudes toward beauty and personal care products were investigated. Conclusion: The empirical findings show that green knowledge is considered the most important factor in the attitude-behavior gap, as consumption habits and patterns hinder purchase behavior. Second, is health consciousness, where purchase behavior is hindered by the skepticism of product attributes and insufficient information. Third, self-image, as overpackaging makes consumers think that it is detrimental to their image of green consumption. Finally, social influence is the least important factor, as Chinese people are collectivistic and purchasing behavior is more likely to be influenced by surroundings. By prioritizing these four factors, beauty companies and marketers can understand what is preventing Chinese consumers from purchasing beauty and personal care products, and then have the appropriate marketing strategies to respond.